Search

Background: About half of MCI patients experience semantic deficits, which may predict progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD). The neural basis of these deficits in MCI is not well understood. This study aimed to examine the relationship between semantic memory performance and cortical thickness in MCI patients., Methods: Using FreeSurfer, T1-weighted MRI scans were analyzed from MCI patients with (MCIsem+) and without (MCIsem-) semantic deficits. Correlation analyses across all participants, including healthy controls, examined the link between semantic memory and cortical thickness, controlling for age and education. Group comparisons of cortical thickness were also conducted between MCIsem+ and MCIsem- groups., Results: Significant correlations emerged between semantic memory performance and cortical thickness in the left medial temporal lobe, right temporal pole, and bilateral frontal regions-areas involved in central semantic and executive processes. Additionally, MCIsem + patients showed reduced cortical thickness in frontal, parietal, and occipital areas compared to MCIsem- patients., Conclusion: Semantic memory performance in MCI patients is associated with structural differences in regions supporting both central and executive aspects of semantic processing. Given that MCIsem + patients may face higher risk of AD progression, longitudinal studies should investigate these cortical markers' predictive value., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Potentially traumatic events elicit intrusive memories to which some individuals are more vulnerable than others. Lower abstract reasoning capacity has been related to more intrusive memories. A more perceptual processing style when encoding the event may mediate this link. Another potential mechanism is lower attentional control, resulting in greater attentional bias toward trauma-related content. We examined both of these possibilities using a trauma-analogue paradigm. One hundred and twenty participants completed abstract reasoning tasks. Then, 90 participants watched a negative video, and 30 participants watched a neutral video. The level of perceptual processing (P1) and attentional bias (RT) towards trauma-related stimuli were measured with a pictorial Stroop task while recording EEG. Intrusive memories were recorded for 5 days. Abstract reasoning was not associated with intrusive memories. However, lower abstract reasoning tended to be associated with more perceptual processing (greater P1 amplitude) following the negative video. More perceptual processing also tended to be related to more intrusive memories for younger participants. A more pronounced attentional bias was related to more intrusive memories, but only for women. Unexpectedly, also for women, better verbal reasoning was linked to a more pronounced attentional bias. Results are compared to existing studies and future implications are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Our ability to consciously perceive information from the visual scene relies on a myriad of intrinsic neural mechanisms. Functional neuroimaging studies have sought to identify the neural correlates of conscious visual processing and to further dissociate from those pertaining to preconscious and unconscious visual processing. However, delineating what core brain regions are involved in eliciting a conscious percept remains a challenge, particularly regarding the role of prefrontal-parietal regions. We performed a systematic search of the literature that yielded a total of 54 functional neuroimaging studies. We conducted two quantitative meta-analyses using activation likelihood estimation to identify reliable patterns of activation engaged by i. conscious (n = 45 studies, comprising 704 participants) and ii. unconscious (n = 16 studies, comprising 262 participants) visual processing during various task performances. Results of the meta-analysis specific to conscious percepts quantitatively revealed reliable activations across a constellation of regions comprising the bilateral inferior frontal junction, intraparietal sulcus, dorsal anterior cingulate, angular gyrus, temporo-occipital cortex and anterior insula. Neurosynth reverse inference revealed conscious visual processing to be intertwined with cognitive terms related to attention, cognitive control and working memory. Results of the meta-analysis on unconscious percepts revealed consistent activations in the lateral occipital complex, intraparietal sulcus and precuneus. These findings highlight the notion that conscious visual processing readily engages higher-level regions including the inferior frontal junction and unconscious processing reliably recruits posterior regions, mainly the lateral occipital complex., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has accelerated human neuroscience by fostering the analysis of brain microstructure, geometry, function, and connectivity across multiple scales and in living brains. The richness and complexity of multimodal neuroimaging, however, demands processing methods to integrate information across modalities and to consolidate findings across different spatial scales. Here, we present micapipe, an open processing pipeline for multimodal MRI datasets. Based on BIDS-conform input data, micapipe can generate i) structural connectomes derived from diffusion tractography, ii) functional connectomes derived from resting-state signal correlations, iii) geodesic distance matrices that quantify cortico-cortical proximity, and iv) microstructural profile covariance matrices that assess inter-regional similarity in cortical myelin proxies. The above matrices can be automatically generated across established 18 cortical parcellations (100-1000 parcels), in addition to subcortical and cerebellar parcellations, allowing researchers to replicate findings easily across different spatial scales. Results are represented on three different surface spaces (native, conte69, fsaverage5), and outputs are BIDS-conform. Processed outputs can be quality controlled at the individual and group level. micapipe was tested on several datasets and is available at https://github.com/MICA-MNI/micapipe, documented at https://micapipe.readthedocs.io/, and containerized as a BIDS App http://bids-apps.neuroimaging.io/apps/. We hope that micapipe will foster robust and integrative studies of human brain microstructure, morphology, function, cand connectivity., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Child disruptive behavior refers to ongoing patterns of disorganized, uncooperative, and defiant behavior. Sport involvement promotes positive child development. However, few longitudinal studies have tested the association between organized sport participation and the behavioral components of disruptive behavior. First, we aim to examine the link between inattentive, hyperactive, aggressive, and oppositional behavior at age 4 years and trajectories of organized sport participation from ages 6 to 10 years. Then, we compare children, according to trajectory membership, on outcome differences on these same behaviors at age 12 years. Data are from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (N = 1492). Child behavior was assessed by questionnaires completed by mothers at age 4 years and teachers at age 12 years. Preschool child inattention as perceived by mothers, significantly reduced the odds of middle childhood organized sport participation by 7% (95% CI = 1.00-1.15). Low or inconsistent participation in organized sport was subsequently associated with increased inattention (d = 0.28) by the end of sixth grade. These findings are above and beyond individual and family characteristics and baseline behavior. No other associations were statistically significant. Inattentive children who participated less in organized sport showed a greater likelihood toward increases in attention deficit by the end of sixth grade. To improve engagement from these children, coaches and trainers should use strategies that support positive experiences such as developing a one-to-one alliance with the child, favoring social cooperation through team spirit, and focusing on the performance experience rather than the outcome of winning or losing., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Entrenched deep within the Sylvian fissure, the insula has long been considered one of the least understood regions of the human brain, in part due to its restricted accessibility. However, recent evidence suggests that the insula plays a key role in gustation, interoception, cognitive and emotional processes, and likely integrates these different functions to contribute to the homeostatic control of food intake. In the past decade, our team has identified the insula as a potential site of epileptogenicity, which can be successfully treated by microsurgical resection. While most surgeries are successful in controlling insular epileptic seizures and lead to few postoperative deficits, the subtle changes that may occur in food-related experiences are still unknown. Using a self-report questionnaire, the present study sought to fill this gap by assessing changes in appetite in patients who underwent unilateral partial or complete insular resections (n = 17) as part of their epilepsy surgery. We compared them to a group of patients who underwent temporal lobe epilepsy surgery (n = 22) as a lesion-control group. A majority (59%) of the insular patients reported an alteration in appetite, with most of these changes being characterized by a persistent reduction. Such changes were rarely reported following temporal lobectomy (14%). While they significantly differed in terms of appetite changes, both groups were similar when examining post-surgical changes in weight, diet, exercise and eating habits. Insular patients with altered appetite also showed behavioral signs of dysfunctional interoceptive and gustatory functions, corroborating the idea that these systems play a role in the regulation of feeding behaviours. This research pushes our understanding of the mechanisms underlying food intake and could lead to avenues for the treatment of eating disorders., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Insular epilepsy is increasingly recognized in epilepsy surgery centers. Recent studies suggest that resection of an epileptogenic zone that involves the insula as a treatment for drug-resistant seizures is associated with good outcomes in terms of seizure control. However, despite the existing evidence of a role of the insula in emotions and affective information processing, the long-term psychological outcome of patients undergoing these surgeries remain poorly documented. A group of 27 adults (18 women) who underwent an insulo-opercular resection (in combination with a part of the temporal lobe in 10, and of the frontal lobe in 5) as part of epilepsy surgery at our center between 2004 and 2019 completed psychometric questionnaires to assess depression (Beck Depression Inventory - 2nd edition; BDI-II), anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Trait Version; STAI-T), and quality of life (Patient Weighted Quality of Life In Epilepsy; QOLIE-10-P). Scores were compared to those of patients who had standard temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) surgery with similar socio-demographic and disease characteristics. Seizure control after insular epilepsy surgery was comparable to that observed after TLE surgery, with a majority of patients reporting being seizure free (insular: 63.0%; temporal: 63.2%) or having rare disabling seizures (insular: 7.4%; temporal: 18.4%) at the time of questionnaire completion. Statistical comparisons revealed no significant group difference on scores of depression, anxiety, or quality of life. Hemisphere or extent of insular resection had no significant effect on the studied variables. In the total sample, employment status and seizure control, but not location of surgery, significantly predicted quality of life. Self-reported long-term psychological status after insulo-opercular resection as part of epilepsy surgery thus appears to be similar to that observed after TLE surgery, which is commonly performed in epilepsy surgery centers., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In adults, grip force has reliably been used to investigate motor simulation evoked by linguistic action, suggesting that motor phenomena are linked to semantic action. The parietal and frontal lobes and their connexions are essential neural structures for pragmatic aspects of hand semantic action. In this perspective, the aim of the study was to determine the extent to which two groups of children and adolescents, classically characterized by degree of axonal myelination in fronto-parietal circuits, monitored the occurrence of nouns and manual action verbs presented auditorily while holding a grip force sensor. Differential effects of grip force were seen only in the adolescents when monitoring action verbs. Interestingly, weaker effects of grip force were modulated by noun targets only in the younger children, revealing that the ability to profit from a full semantic representation of verbs is not clearly established in the younger children. Grip force modulation was observed as early as 300 ms post target onset and peaked at the 500-750 ms window of observation for both groups. These group differences are in line with the motor simulation difficulties seen in younger children. The results may also indicate that degree of grip force in response to specific linguistic categories parallels the maturation of the parietal-frontal circuits, including the anterior intra-parietal area which plays a determining role in semantic aspects of hand action., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The insular cortex is now well-established as a potential site of epileptogenesis in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, and its resection has been associated with good outcomes in terms of seizure control. However, given the role of the insula in sensory processing and in visceral information integration, it remains unclear whether insular cortex epilepsy and its surgery are associated with disturbances in sensory information processing and visceral sensation processes as experienced in daily life. In the present study, we examined such sensory disturbances in a group of patients (n = 17) who underwent epilepsy surgery involving a resection of the insula and compared them to a lesion-control group of patients with temporal epilepsy surgery (n = 22) and a healthy control group (n = 29) matched for age, gender, and education. Participants were assessed on the self-report "Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile" questionnaire at least four months after surgery. Our series of one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) revealed that insular and temporal resections in patients with drug-refractory epilepsy were associated with a low "sensation seeking" behavior reflecting a lack of engagement with sensory inputs from the environment. Furthermore, insular resections were associated with impairments in the "active behavioral responses" for the gustatory/olfactory modalities. These preliminary findings suggest that insular resections may be associated with mild to moderate alterations in sensory processing., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

While there is a profusion of functional investigations involving the superior temporal sulcus (STS), our knowledge of the anatomy of this sulcus is still limited by a large individual variability. In particular, an accurate characterization of the "plis de passage" (PPs), annectant gyri inside the fold, is lacking to explain this variability. Performed on 90 subjects of the HCP database, our study revealed that PPs constitute landmarks that can be identified from the geometry of the STS walls. They were found associated with a specific U-shape white-matter connectivity between the two banks of the sulcus, the amount of connectivity being related to the depth of the PPs. These findings raise new hypotheses regarding the spatial organization of PPs, the relation between cortical anatomy and structural connectivity, as well as the possible role of PPs in the regional functional organization., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Depressive symptoms and anxiety are common complaints in patients who have had epilepsy surgery. Recent studies have reported disturbances in emotional memory, facial and vocal emotion recognition, and affective learning after temporal lobe and/or insular resection for drug-resistant seizures, suggesting that these regions may be involved in emotional processes underlying psychological symptoms. The insula is a core component of the salience network and is thought to be involved in processing emotions such as disgust, and the role of mesial temporal lobe structures in affective processing is well established. However, to our knowledge, no study has yet investigated whether attentional processing of affective information is altered when these structures are resected as part of an epilepsy surgery. The present study examined the interference control capacity and attentional biases for emotional information in adult patients with epilepsy who underwent temporal lobe resections including the amygdala and hippocampus (n = 15) and/or partial or complete insular resections (n = 16). Patients were tested on an Emotional Stroop test and on a Dot-Probe task using fearful and disgusting pictures and were compared with a healthy control group (n = 30) matched for age, gender, and education. Repeated-measures analyses of variances revealed a significant effect of emotional words on color naming speed in the Emotional Stroop task among insular patients, which was not observed in the other groups. By contrast, the groups did not differ on Dot-Probe task performance. These preliminary findings suggest that insular damage may alter emotional interference control., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Sense of agency (SoA) describes the experience of being the author of an action. Cue integration approaches divide SoA into an implicit level, mostly relying on prospective sensorimotor signals, and an explicit level, resulting from an integration of sensorimotor and contextual cues based on their reliability. Integration mechanisms at each level and the contribution of implicit to explicit SoA remain underspecified. In a task of movements with visual outcomes, we tested the effect of social context (contextual cue) and sensory prediction congruency (retrospective sensorimotor cue) over implicit (intentional binding) and explicit (verbal judgments) SoA. Our results suggest that prospective sensorimotor cues determine implicit SoA. At the explicit level, retrospective sensorimotor cues and contextual cues are partly integrated in an additive way, but contextual cues can also act as a heuristic if sensorimotor cues are highly unreliable. We also found no significant association between implicit and explicit SoA., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

It is well known that expectations influence how we perceive the world. Yet the neural mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Studies about the effects of prior expectations have focused so far on artificial contingencies between simple neutral cues and events. Real-world expectations are however often generated from complex associations between contexts and objects learned over a lifetime. Additionally, these expectations may contain some affective value and recent proposals present conflicting hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying affect in predictions. In this study, we used fMRI to investigate how object processing is influenced by realistic context-based expectations, and how affect impacts these expectations. First, we show that the precuneus, the inferotemporal cortex and the frontal cortex are more active during object recognition when expectations have been elicited a priori, irrespectively of their validity or their affective intensity. This result supports previous hypotheses according to which these brain areas integrate contextual expectations with object sensory information. Notably, these brain areas are different from those responsible for simultaneous context-object interactions, dissociating the two processes. Then, we show that early visual areas, on the contrary, are more active during object recognition when no prior expectation has been elicited by a context. Lastly, BOLD activity was shown to be enhanced in early visual areas when objects are less expected, but only when contexts are neutral; the reverse effect is observed when contexts are affective. This result supports the proposal that affect modulates the weighting of sensory information during predictions. Together, our results help elucidate the neural mechanisms of real-world expectations., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no competing financial interests., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Significant research has linked parents' feeding practices to children's eating habits. However, much less is known about how childhood feeding relates to longer-term outcomes such as eating in adulthood. The current study uses retrospective reports from mother-daughter dyads (N = 217) to compare childhood feeding practices and to examine how recalled feeding is related to current eating (emotional eating, intuitive eating, unrestrained eating) and body mass index (BMI) in adult daughters. Mothers and daughters completed the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ), subscales from the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire, and the Intuitive Eating Scale. Results of an exploratory factor analysis indicated that mothers and daughters largely had similar factor structures on retrospective reports, with factor loadings varying on four of twelve original CFPQ subscales: monitoring, restriction for health, child control, and modelling. Paired samples t-tests examined mean differences between mother and daughter reports on each subscale; there was no significant difference between mother and daughter reports on six of the 11 scales. Daughters reported significantly higher levels of pressure to eat; mothers reported significantly higher levels of healthy practices, child control, involvement, and unhealthy environment than their daughters recalled. Hierarchical regressions revealed that daughters' reports of specific childhood feeding practices accounted for significant change in unadjusted variance for uncontrolled eating (18.8%), emotional eating (13.1%), intuitive eating (14.7%), and BMI (16.1%). Similarly, regressions revealed that mothers' reports of childhood feeding practices accounted for significant change in unadjusted variance for emotional eating (11.5%) and BMI (11.2%), but not uncontrolled or intuitive eating. Collectively, results lend strong support to the use of retrospective reports on childhood feeding and provide evidence that recalled childhood feeding practices have lasting relations with adult eating behaviors., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

An individual's nervous and cognitive systems are lateralized, and handedness represents a behavioral manifestation of such organization. Therefore, accurately and reliably measuring handedness has repercussion on our understanding of both the human brain and cognition. The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) is the most frequently used instrument to measure handedness both in clinical practice and research. We assessed the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the EHI in a sample of 348 Chilean university students by confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were calculated to evaluate the internal consistency and reliability of the EHI, while the average variance extracted was estimated to evaluate its convergent validity. A 10-item unifactorial structure was confirmed, with factor loadings ≥0.50, showing excellent goodness-of-fit indicators, very high internal consistency and adequate composite reliability and convergent validity. Socio-demographic variables (sex, area of residence and belonging to an indigenous people or community) did not significantly modulate the EHI scores. Overall, by using this validated version of the EHI to accurately and reliably measure handedness in the greater Spanish population, researchers will be able to produce robust data to tackle the still open questions of lateralization in human cognitive and neural architecture., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Experienced musicians outperform non-musicians in understanding speech-in-noise (SPIN). The benefits of lifelong musicianship endure into older age, where musicians experience smaller declines in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments. However, it is presently unknown whether commencing musical training in old age can also counteract age-related decline in speech perception, and whether such training induces changes in neural processing of speech. Here, we recruited older adult non-musicians and assigned them to receive a short course of piano or videogame training, or no training. Participants completed two sessions of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging where they performed a SPIN task prior to and following training. While we found no direct benefit of musical training upon SPIN perception, an exploratory Region of Interest analysis revealed increased cortical responses to speech in left Middle Frontal and Supramarginal Gyri which correlated with changes in SPIN task performance in the group which received music training. These results suggest that short-term musical training in older adults may enhance neural encoding of speech, with the potential to reduce age-related decline in speech perception., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Goal neglect has been shown to contribute to kindergarteners' poor executive control. Hence, presenting goal cues during a task improves children's performance in inhibition and switching tasks. The current study aimed at extending these findings to working memory (WM) by examining the extent to which kindergarteners' poor WM performance can result from neglecting the goal to recall memoranda at the end of the retention interval. This question was addressed by introducing goal cues, either visual (Experiments 1 and 2a) or auditory-verbal (Experiment 2b), during the retention interval in a Brown-Peterson task. Results showed no evidence of recall improvement for any cue. However, kindergarteners rehearsed more often in the presence of a visual goal cue, whereas recall was impaired with the presentation of an auditory-verbal goal cue. This suggests that introducing a goal cue in the retention interval of a WM task triggers the use of rehearsal in kindergarteners, albeit without any benefit in WM performance. This contrasts sharply with findings on other executive control tasks. Reasons why goal cues failed to improve kindergarteners' WM performance are discussed., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The link between language processing and motor systems has been the focus of increasing interest to Cognitive Neuroscience. Some classical papers studying Event Related Potentials (ERPs) induced by linguistic stimuli have found differences in electrophysiological activity when comparing action and non-action words; more specifically, a bigger p200 for action words. On the other hand, a series of studies have validated the use of a grip force sensor (GFS) to measure language-induced motor activity during both isolated words and sentence listening, finding that action words induce an augmentation in the grip force around 250-300 ms after the onset of the stimulus. The purpose of the present study is to combine both techniques to assess if the p200 is related to the augmentation of the grip force measured by a GFS. We measured ERP and GFS changes elicited by listening to action and non-action words while maintaining an active grasping task. Our results show that both the p200 and the grip force around 300 ms are bigger for action words, compared to non-action. We also report a statistical correlation between these measures. To our knowledge, this is the first study where the electrophysiological activity and the changes in the grip force induced by auditory language processing are put together, opening new venues of interpretation for the sensorimotor interaction in language processing., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Specific attributes of a food product can cause it to be spontaneously but wrongly perceived as healthier than it really is (i.e., the health halo effect). Notably, there is preliminary evidence that individuals evaluate organic food as less caloric than regular, non-organic food. However, explanations regarding the cognitive mechanisms underlying the health halo effect remain scarce. Drawing from the implicit cognition literature, we hypothesize that this effect could be due to (a) the reactivation in memory of implicit positive evaluations and/or (b) the reactivation of a semantic association between the concepts "organic" and "non-caloric". We first conducted a 2 (Product label: organic versus non-organic) × continuous (Valence-IAT score) × continuous (Calorie-IAT score) study (N = 151) to test these hypotheses, and conducted a conceptual replication in a second study (N = 269). We computed Bayesian analyses alongside frequentist analyses in order to test for potential null hypotheses, as well as frequencies and Bayesian meta-regression including both datasets. Both methods provided consistent results. First, Bayesian analyses yielded extremely strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the organic label leads to an underestimation of caloric value. Second, they provided strong evidence that this effect is not moderated by implicit evaluations. Hence, we replicated the organic halo effect but showed that, surprisingly, it does not arise from implicit associations. We discuss these findings and propose directions for future research regarding the mechanisms underlying calories (under)estimation., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Age-related changes in sleep and circadian regulation occur as early as the middle years of life. Research also suggests that sleep and circadian rhythms are regulated differently between women and men. However, does sleep and circadian rhythms regulation age similarly in men and women? In this review, we present the mechanisms underlying age-related differences in sleep and the current state of knowledge on how they interact with sex. We also address how testosterone, estrogens, and progesterone fluctuations across adulthood interact with sleep and circadian regulation. Finally, we will propose research avenues to unravel the mechanisms underlying sex differences in age-related effects on sleep., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Blindness is a unique model for understanding the role of experience in the development of the brain's functional and anatomical architecture. Documenting changes in the structure of anatomical networks for this population would substantiate the notion that the brain's core network-level organization may undergo neuroplasticity as a result of life-long experience. To examine this issue, we compared whole-brain networks of regional cortical-thickness covariance in early blind and matched sighted individuals. This covariance is thought to reflect signatures of integration between systems involved in similar perceptual/cognitive functions. Using graph-theoretic metrics, we identified a unique mode of anatomical reorganization in the blind that differed from that found for sighted. This was seen in that network partition structures derived from subgroups of blind were more similar to each other than they were to partitions derived from sighted. Notably, after deriving network partitions, we found that language and visual regions tended to reside within separate modules in sighted but showed a pattern of merging into shared modules in the blind. Our study demonstrates that early visual deprivation triggers a systematic large-scale reorganization of whole-brain cortical-thickness networks, suggesting changes in how occipital regions interface with other functional networks in the congenitally blind., (Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In contrast with other imaging modalities, there is presently a scarcity of fully open resources in magnetoencephalography (MEG) available to the neuroimaging community. Here we present a collaborative effort led by the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre of the Montreal Neurological Institute, and the Université de Montréal to build and share a centralised repository to curate MEG data in raw and processed form for open dissemination. The Open MEG Archive (OMEGA, omega.bic.mni.mcgill.ca) is bound to become a continuously expanding repository of multimodal data with a primary focus on MEG, in addition to storing anatomical MRI volumes, demographic participant data and questionnaires, and other forms of electrophysiological data such as EEG. The OMEGA initiative offers both the technological framework for multi-site MEG data aggregation, and serves as one of the largest freely available resting-state and eventually task-related MEG datasets presently available., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The advantage of selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SAH) over anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) for the treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) remains controversial. Because ATL is more extensive and involves the lateral and medial parts of the temporal lobe, it may be predicted that its impact on memory is more important than SAH, which involves resection of medial temporal structures only. However, several studies do not support this assumption. Possible explanations include task-specific factors such as the extent of semantic and syntactic information to be memorized and failure to control for main confounders. We compared preoperative vs. postoperative memory performance in 13 patients with SAH with 26 patients who underwent ATL matched on side of surgery, IQ, age at seizure onset, and age at surgery. Memory function was assessed using the Logical Memory subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scales - 3rd edition (LM-WMS), the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), the Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed opposite effects of SAH and ATL on the two verbal learning memory tests. On the immediate recall trial of the LM-WMS, performance deteriorated after ATL in comparison with that after SAH. By contrast, on the delayed recognition trial of the RAVLT, performance deteriorated after SAH compared with that after ATL. However, additional analyses revealed that the latter finding was only observed when surgery was conducted in the right hemisphere. No interaction effects were found on other memory outcomes. The results are congruent with the view that tasks involving rich semantic content and syntactical structure are more sensitive to the effects of lateral temporal cortex resection as compared with mesiotemporal resection. The findings highlight the importance of task selection in the assessment of memory in patients undergoing TLE surgery., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Experiments involving verbal self-monitoring show that memory for spoken words varies with types of sensory feedback: memory is better when words are spoken aloud than when they are lip-synched or covertly produced. Such effects can be explained by the Central Monitoring Theory (CMT) via a process that matches a forward model reflecting expected sensory effects of practiced forms and sensory information during speech. But CMT oversees factors of shared attention as achieved by speaker-listener gaze, and implies that sensory feedback may not affect the learning of unpracticed forms (non-words). These aspects of CMT were examined in two experiments of self-monitoring focusing on oro-sensory feedback. In Experiment 1 we show that varying feedback creates differential effects on memory for spoken words and that speaker-listener gaze alters these effects. Using non-words, Experiment 2 shows the absence of differential feedback effects. The results confirm CMT but suggest the need to refine the theory in terms of processes that mediate attention., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

fMRI studies increasingly examine functions and properties of non-primary areas of human auditory cortex. However there is currently no standardized localization procedure to reliably identify specific areas across individuals such as the standard 'localizers' available in the visual domain. Here we present an fMRI 'voice localizer' scan allowing rapid and reliable localization of the voice-sensitive 'temporal voice areas' (TVA) of human auditory cortex. We describe results obtained using this standardized localizer scan in a large cohort of normal adult subjects. Most participants (94%) showed bilateral patches of significantly greater response to vocal than non-vocal sounds along the superior temporal sulcus/gyrus (STS/STG). Individual activation patterns, although reproducible, showed high inter-individual variability in precise anatomical location. Cluster analysis of individual peaks from the large cohort highlighted three bilateral clusters of voice-sensitivity, or "voice patches" along posterior (TVAp), mid (TVAm) and anterior (TVAa) STS/STG, respectively. A series of extra-temporal areas including bilateral inferior prefrontal cortex and amygdalae showed small, but reliable voice-sensitivity as part of a large-scale cerebral voice network. Stimuli for the voice localizer scan and probabilistic maps in MNI space are available for download., (Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Aerobic exercise training (AET) has been shown to provide health benefits in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it is yet unknown to what extent AET also improves cognitive and procedural learning capacities, which ensure an optimal daily functioning., Objective: In the current study, we assessed the effects of a 3-month AET program on executive functions (EF), implicit motor sequence learning (MSL) capacity, as well as on different health-related outcome indicators., Methods: Twenty healthy controls (HC) and 19 early PD individuals participated in a supervised, high-intensity, stationary recumbent bike-training program (3 times/week for 12 weeks). Exercise prescription started at 20 min (+5 min/week up to 40 min) based on participant's maximal aerobic power. Before and after AET, EF tests assessed participants' inhibition and flexibility functions, whereas implicit MSL capacity was evaluated using a version of the Serial Reaction Time Task., Results: The AET program was effective as indicated by significant improvement in aerobic capacity in all participants. Most importantly, AET improved inhibition but not flexibility, and motor learning skill, in both groups., Conclusion: Our results suggest that AET can be a valuable non-pharmacological intervention to promote physical fitness in early PD, but also better cognitive and procedural functioning., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Age-related differences in the ability to perform two tasks simultaneously (or dual-task) have become a major concern in aging neurosciences and have often been assessed with two distinct paradigms; the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) and the Dual-Task (DT) paradigms. PRP studies assess participants when they give Priority to one task over the other (complete A then B), whereas in DT studies participants give Equal priority to both tasks (complete A and B). The Equal condition could be viewed as adding an executive control component to the task since the participants must spontaneously monitor attention between tasks. In the current study, we assessed the effect of priority instructions (Priority vs. Equal) on the dual-task performance and brain activity of younger (n = 16) and older adults (n = 19) with functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS). In younger adults, the Priority condition showed right-sided activation in the prefrontal cortex during DT execution. Older adults showed bilateral frontal activation, yet restrained to specific areas. They showed increased activation in DT vs. single task condition in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). In the Equal condition, the DT condition showed isolated left DLPFC and VLPFC activation in younger adults and widespread bilateral DLPFC activation in older adults. These results suggest that for both older and younger adults, priority effects are associated with distinct patterns of prefrontal activation. Age-related differences also exist in these patterns such that prefrontal activation seems to be more spread out at different sites in older adults when they are instructed to give Equal priority to both tasks., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Unilateral hippocampal atrophy (HA) is considered as a precursor of mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) in some patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. However, in other cases, it has been suggested that HA without MTS may constitute a distinct epileptic entity. Hippocampal atrophy without MTS was defined as HA without T2-weighted hyperintensity, loss of internal architecture, or associated lesion seen on the MRI data. To date, no study has focused on the cognitive pattern of children with epilepsy with HA without MTS. The objectives of the present study were to characterize the cognitive profile of these children and to investigate the presence (or the absence) of material-specific memory deficits in these young patients, as found in patients with MTS. Toward this end, 16 young patients with epilepsy with either left or right HA without MTS completed a set of neuropsychological tests, assessing overall intelligence, verbal memory and nonverbal memory, and some aspects of attention and executive functions. Results showed normal intellectual functioning without specific memory deficits in these patients. Furthermore, comparison between patients with left HA and patients with right HA failed to reveal a material-specific lateralized memory pattern. Instead, attention and executive functions were found to be impaired in most patients. These results suggest that HA may constitute a distinct epileptic entity, and this information may help health-care providers initiate appropriate and timely interventions., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Resection of the insular cortex is becoming more frequent as it is increasingly recognized that a nonnegligible proportion of surgical candidates with drug-resistant epilepsy have an epileptogenic zone that involves the insula. In the last decades, however, the insula has been proposed to be involved in several neuropsychological functions, and there is a lack of documentation on whether partial or complete insulectomy results in permanent cognitive impairments in this clinical population. In this study, we conducted standard preoperative and postoperative neuropsychological assessments in 18 patients undergoing epilepsy surgery that included the removal of the insula in the right (n=13) or the left (n=5) hemisphere. Postoperative testing was conducted at least five months after surgery. Cognitive impairments were common and heterogeneous prior to surgery, with language and verbal memory impairments being especially frequent among patients in whom epileptic seizures originated from the left hemisphere. After surgery, declines and improvements occurred on a variety of outcomes, although new deficits were relatively infrequent among patients who had obtained normal performance at baseline. Statistical comparisons between preoperative and postoperative assessments revealed significant deterioration of only one outcome - the color naming condition of the Stroop test - which relies on oro-motor speed and lexical access. These findings suggest that partial or complete resection of the insular cortex in patients with drug-refractory epilepsy can be conducted without major permanent neuropsychological impairments in a vast majority of patients. However, small decrements in specific cognitive functions can be expected, which should also be taken into account when considering the surgical option in this clinical population., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Understanding the development of conditional (if-then) reasoning is critical for theoretical and educational reasons. Here we examined the hypothesis that there is a developmental transition between reasoning with true and contrary-to-fact (CF) causal conditionals. A total of 535 students between 11 and 14 years of age received priming conditions designed to encourage use of either a true or CF alternatives generation strategy and reasoning problems with true causal and CF causal premises (with counterbalanced order). Results show that priming had no effect on reasoning with true causal premises. By contrast, priming with CF alternatives significantly improved logical reasoning with CF premises. Analysis of the effect of order showed that reasoning with CF premises reduced logical responding among younger students but had no effect among older students. Results support the idea that there is a transition in the reasoning processes in this age range associated with the nature of the alternatives generation process required for logical reasoning with true and CF causal conditionals., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In two experiments we investigate conditional reasoning using event-related potentials (ERPs). Our goal was to examine the time course of inference making in two conditional forms, one logically valid (Modus Ponens, MP) and one logically invalid (Affirming the Consequent, AC). We focus particularly on the involvement of semantically-based inferential processes potentially marked by modulations of the N400. We also compared reasoning about emotional and neutral contents with separate sets of stimuli of differing linguistic complexity across the two experiments. Both MP and AC modulated the N400 component, suggesting the involvement of a semantically-based inferential mechanism common across different logical forms, content types, and linguistic features of the problems. Emotion did not have an effect on early components, and did not interact with components related to inference making. There was a main effect of emotion in the 800-1050 ms time window, consistent with an effect on sustained attention. The results suggest that conditional reasoning is not a purely formal process but that it importantly implicates semantic processing, and that the effect of emotion on reasoning does not primarily operate through a modulation of early automatic stages of information processing., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In the Emotional Stroop task, trauma-exposed victims are slowed when naming the colour print of trauma-related words, showing the presence of interference. This interference has been assumed to reflect emotional reactions triggered by experience-relevant emotional content which interfere with the task. However, it may equally reflect the activation of task-competing thoughts triggered by experience-relevant semantic content, thus resulting from cognitive- rather than emotion-driven processes. This study contrasted these possibilities by measuring the relationship between Emotional Stroop interference, on the one hand, and severity of sexual-abuse experience, subjective ratings of emotionality, and working-memory measures, on the other. Whereas there was no relationship between working-memory measures and interference, providing no support for the cognitive-based account, experience severity, emotionality ratings and abuse-related interference were all positively related, providing support for the emotion-based account. These findings support the idea that the Emotional Stroop task can be used as a diagnostic tool for emotion-filtering impairment., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Olfactory function in healthy people correlates with structural features of both the olfactory bulb and higher order olfactory processing areas, but we do not yet know how congenital anosmia affects these latter structures. In order to examine this question closer, we acquired T1 weighted magnetic resonance images from 17 subjects with congenital anosmia and from 17 age- and sex-matched controls. We compared white and gray matter volumes as well as cortical thickness between both groups. We found subjects with congenital anosmia to exhibit larger gray matter volumes in the left entorhinal and piriform cortices. Further, they had thicker orbitofrontal cortices bilaterally. Their left piriform cortex was also thicker than that of controls. These findings are in contrast to those observed in acquired anosmia, where reduced olfactory function is associated with reduced volumes and thickness. However, they fit well with observations from other sensory systems, e.g., vision, where congenital sensory loss is associated with a thicker primary cortex. This finding has been attributed to reduced or absent synaptic pruning as a result of missing peripheral sensory input. Our findings suggest that similar mechanisms take place in the olfactory system., (© 2013.)

Validity of two models of hemispheric specialization was compared. The "material-specific impairment" model was radicalized as postulating that left hemisphere (LH) lesions impair processing of verbal material and that right hemisphere (RH) lesions impair processing of visuospatial material, independently of response-bias distortions. The "response-bias distortion" model was radicalized as postulating that LH lesions distort response style toward omissiveness and that RH lesions distort response style toward commissiveness, regardless of material-specific impairments. Participants had comparable left (N=27) or right (N=24) hemisphere cortical lesions having occurred between birth and early adolescence. Four cognitive neuropsychological tests were adjusted to optimize applicability and comparability of the two theoretical models: Rey Complex Figure, Kimura's Recurring Figures, the Story Recall subtest of the Children's Memory Scale, and the California Verbal Learning Test. Both models significantly, independently, and equally distinguished the LH from the RH patients. Both these forms of hemispheric specialization seemed to be implemented very early in life and very rigidly. Intrahemispheric lesion sites, e.g., frontal vs nonfrontal, held no significant relation to the effects described above., (© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Studies on the effects of acute bouts of cardiovascular exercise on cognitive performances show contradictory findings due to methodological differences (e.g., exercise intensity, cognitive function assessed, participants' aerobic fitness level, etc.). The present study assessed the acute effect of exercise intensity on cognition while controlling for key methodological confounds. Thirty-seven participants (M(age)=23. 8 years; SD=2.6) completed a computerized modified-Stroop task (involving denomination, inhibition and switching conditions) while pedalling at 40%, 60% and 80% of their peak power output (PPO). Results showed that in the switching condition of the task, error rates increased as a function of exercise intensity (from 60% to 80% of PPO) in all participants and that lower fit individuals showed increased reaction time variability. This suggests that acute bouts of cardiovascular exercise can momentarily alter executive control and increase performance instability in lower fit individuals., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Brain imaging studies have reported age-related differences in brain activation for attentional control functions, such as inhibition and task-switching. However, age-related differences in brain activation patterns in more than one attentional control task have rarely been studied in the same group of participants. In this study, younger and older adults completed a modified Stroop task with interference and switching conditions, using functional near infra-red spectroscopy. While interference did not reveal any significant activation of the prefrontal cortex in younger adults, switching produced an increased activation bilaterally in both the anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the anterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). In older adults, an isolated right and left anterior DLPFC activation was observed even in the non-executive conditions of the Stroop task (color denomination) and the interference condition revealed activation mostly in the posterior left DLPFC and bilateral VLPFC with a small right anterior DLPFC component. Specific to older adults, switching induced an increased activation spread out bilaterally over the prefrontal cortex in the bilateral anterior DLPFC, the posterior left DLPFC and bilateral VLPFC. These results suggest that for both older and younger adults, inhibition and switching are associated with distinct patterns of prefrontal activation and that age-related differences exist in these patterns such that prefrontal activation seems to be more spread out at different sites in older adults., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Must readers intend to process a word to activate various levels of representation, or is such processing simply triggered by the presentation of a word (i.e., is it "automatic")? This issue was addressed via the use of Besner and Care's Task Set paradigm. On each trial a cue, which indicated which of two tasks to perform appeared either before the target, or at the same time as the target. If subjects can process the target while preparing a task set, then the effect of a manipulated psycholinguistic factor should be absorbed into the time taken to process the cue. Despite robust main effects of SOA and word frequency there was no interaction between these factors when the task was to read aloud. This result implies that target processing is delayed until the subject knows what task to perform, and therefore that intention plays an important role when reading words aloud., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

It was recently proposed that one cognitive strategy people might employ to find a balance between fulfilling their immediate desires and adhering to their long-term goals is to activate compensatory beliefs (CBs). CBs are convictions that the negative effects of a behavior can be compensated for by the positive effects of another behavior (e.g., "I can eat this piece of cake now because I will go to the gym tonight".). The purpose of the present research was to examine the motivational determinants and consequences of CBs in weight-loss dieting. It was proposed that autonomous motivation would lessen the activation of CBs. It was further proposed that activating CBs would decrease goal adherence, which, itself, would facilitate the attainment of one's dieting goals. Results of a prospective study using path analysis provided support for the model., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Speech perception of four phonetic categories (voicing, place, manner, and nasality) was investigated in children with specific language impairment (SLI) (n=20) and age-matched controls (n=19) in quiet and various noise conditions using an AXB two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. Children with SLI exhibited robust speech perception deficits in silence, stationary noise, and amplitude-modulated noise. Comparable deficits were obtained for fast, intermediate, and slow modulation rates, and this speaks against the various temporal processing accounts of SLI. Children with SLI exhibited normal "masking release" effects (i.e., better performance in fluctuating noise than in stationary noise), again suggesting relatively spared spectral and temporal auditory resolution. In terms of phonetic categories, voicing was more affected than place, manner, or nasality. The specific nature of this voicing deficit is hard to explain with general processing impairments in attention or memory. Finally, speech perception in noise correlated with an oral language component but not with either a memory or IQ component, and it accounted for unique variance beyond IQ and low-level auditory perception. In sum, poor speech perception seems to be one of the primary deficits in children with SLI that might explain poor phonological development, impaired word production, and poor word comprehension., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

There is mounting evidence that mindfulness meditation is beneficial for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, yet little is known regarding the neural mechanisms through which mindfulness modulates emotional responses. Thus, a central objective of this functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to investigate the effects of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotionally laden stimuli. Another major goal of this study was to examine the impact of the extent of mindfulness training on the brain mechanisms supporting the processing of emotional stimuli. Twelve experienced (with over 1000 h of practice) and 10 beginner meditators were scanned as they viewed negative, positive, and neutral pictures in a mindful state and a non-mindful state of awareness. Results indicated that the Mindful condition attenuated emotional intensity perceived from pictures, while brain imaging data suggested that this effect was achieved through distinct neural mechanisms for each group of participants. For experienced meditators compared with beginners, mindfulness induced a deactivation of default mode network areas (medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices) across all valence categories and did not influence responses in brain regions involved in emotional reactivity during emotional processing. On the other hand, for beginners relative to experienced meditators, mindfulness induced a down-regulation of the left amygdala during emotional processing. These findings suggest that the long-term practice of mindfulness leads to emotional stability by promoting acceptance of emotional states and enhanced present-moment awareness, rather than by eliciting control over low-level affective cerebral systems from higher-order cortical brain regions. These results have implications for affect-related psychological disorders., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Previous functional neuroimaging studies have shown that maintenance of centrally presented objects in visual short-term memory (VSTM) leads to bilateral increases of BOLD activations in IPS/IOS cortex, while prior electrophysiological work suggests that maintaining stimuli encoded from a single hemifield leads to a sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) in electrophysiology and magnetoencephalography. These two findings have never been investigated using the same physiological measures. We recorded the BOLD response using fMRI, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and electrophysiology (EEG), while subjects encoded visual stimuli from a single hemifield of a balanced display. The EEG showed an SPCN. However, no SPCN-like activation was observed in the BOLD signals. The BOLD response in parietal cortex remained bilateral, even after unilateral encoding of the stimuli, but MEG showed both bilateral and contralateral activations, each likely reflecting a sub portion of the neuronal populations participating in the maintenance of information in VSTM. Contrary to the assumption that BOLD, EEG, and MEG responses - that were each linked to the maintenance of information in VSTM - are markers of the same neuronal processes, our findings suggest that each technique reveals a somewhat distinct but overlapping neural signature of the mechanisms supporting visual short-term memory., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Pain is associated with the activation of many brain areas involved in the multiple dimensions of the experience. Several of those brain areas may also contribute to the monitoring and regulation of autonomic activity but this aspect of pain responses has been largely overlooked in human imaging studies. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study relied on blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal to investigate subject-related differences in brain activity associated with the individual differences in electrodermal responses evoked by 30 s noxious (pain) and innocuous (warm) thermal stimuli. Pain-related activity (pain-warm) was found in the thalamus, somatosensory cortices (leg area of SI/MI, SII, and insula), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the amygdala. Brain activation related to stimulus-evoked electrodermal activity was identified by modeling the predicted BOLD responses with the magnitude of each subject's skin conductance reactivity. Subjects showing larger skin conductance reactivity to the innocuous and/or noxious stimuli displayed larger stimulus-evoked brain responses in the somato-motor cortices (SI/MI, SII, and insula), the perigenual and supracallosal ACC, the orbitofrontal cortex and the medulla. Further analyses revealed brain activation more specifically associated with the pain-related skin conductance reactivity in the supracallosal ACC, amygdala, thalamus, and hypothalamus. These findings demonstrate that individual differences in electrodermal reactivity partly reflect differences in pain-evoked brain responses, consistent with a role of these structures in the monitoring/regulation of pain-related autonomic processes.

While cognitive skill learning is normally acquired implicitly through frontostriatal circuitry in healthy individuals, neuroimaging studies suggest that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) do so by activating alternate, intact brain areas associated with explicit memory processing. To further test this hypothesis, 10 patients with PD and 12 healthy controls were tested on a modified, learning version of the Tower of London task while undergoing positron emission tomography at four different time points over the course of learning. Despite having less accurate problem solving abilities than controls, PD patients were able to acquire the skill learning task. However, as compared to controls, they maintained higher levels of cerebral blood flow activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and showed an increase in activity in the frontopolar cortex and posterior cingulate over the course of learning. These findings reflect a shift to the explicit memory system in PD patients, enabling them to learn this cognitive skill, which is normally acquired by control subjects using implicit learning strategies and frontostriatal circuitry.

Three experiments investigated functional asymmetries related to self-recognition in the domain of voices. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to identify one of three presented voices (self, familiar or unknown) by responding with either the right or the left-hand. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with auditory morphs between the self-voice and a familiar voice and were asked to perform a forced-choice decision on speaker identity with either the left or the right-hand. In Experiment 3, participants were presented with continua of auditory morphs between self- or a familiar voice and a famous voice, and were asked to stop the presentation either when the voice became "more famous" or "more familiar/self". While these experiments did not reveal an overall hand difference for self-recognition, the last study, with improved design and controls, suggested a right-hemisphere advantage for self-compared to other-voice recognition, similar to that observed in the visual domain for self-faces.

The study focused on the cognitive determinants of the accuracy of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments made on episodic memory information. An individual differences approach was used on a sample of healthy older adults assessed on an episodic FOK task and on several neuropsychological measures. At a global level of analysis of FOK accuracy, the contributions of four general cognitive processes--episodic memory, executive functioning, fluid intelligence and processing speed--were examined concurrently. Stepwise regression analyses showed that executive functioning accounted for the major part of variance on FOK accuracy, followed by a significant contribution of episodic memory. After controlling for executive and memory involvement, fluid intelligence and processing speed no longer accounted for significant variance. At a more detailed level of analysis of FOK accuracy, the contributions of three specific executive processes--shifting, updating and inhibition--were assessed. The results revealed shifting function as the primary executive process engaged in the production of accurate FOK judgments in episodic memory. Some hypotheses are put forward to better understand the central role of executive functioning in the production of accurate FOK judgments.

This study examined the idea that expectations of behavior in hypothetical situations involving potential moral transgressions are related to emotion attributions relating to both moral and cost-benefit considerations. We asked younger (14 years 5 months) and older (16 years 1 month) female and male adolescents (a) to make predictions about the probability that an adolescent placed in a hypothetical situation where a payoff could be obtained by acting in a nonmoral way would choose to do so and (b) to evaluate adolescents' attributions of moral (guilt) and cost-benefit-related emotions (satisfaction and fear) to the nonmoral action. Two different situations were examined; one looked at the possibility of stealing money from a lost wallet, and the other examined a situation where a contract with another peer could be broken for personal reasons. Results showed that expectations that the nonmoral action would be taken were positively related to the degree of satisfaction and negatively related to the degree of guilt and fear. However, the pattern of relations between emotion attributions and behavioral expectations differed between the two situations. Female and male adolescents had different levels of emotion attributions and behavioral expectations, but the relation between the two was similar for both. Finally, developmental comparisons indicated that older adolescents put more weight on guilt and were more internally consistent in the way that emotions were integrated into behavioral expectations.

Blind individuals do not necessarily receive more auditory stimulation than sighted individuals. However, to interact effectively with their environment, they have to rely on non-visual cues (in particular auditory) to a greater extent. Often benefiting from cerebral reorganization, they not only learn to rely more on such cues but also may process them better and, as a result, demonstrate exceptional abilities in auditory spatial tasks. Here we examine the effects of blindness on brain activity, using positron emission tomography (PET), during a sound-source discrimination task (SSDT) in both early- and late-onset blind individuals. This should not only provide an answer to the question of whether the blind manifest changes in brain activity but also allow a direct comparison of the two subgroups performing an auditory spatial task. The task was presented under two listening conditions: one binaural and one monaural. The binaural task did not show any significant behavioural differences between groups, but it demonstrated striate and extrastriate activation in the early-blind groups. A subgroup of early-blind individuals, on the other hand, performed significantly better than all the other groups during the monaural task, and these enhanced skills were correlated with elevated activity within the left dorsal extrastriate cortex. Surprisingly, activation of the right ventral visual pathway, which was significantly activated in the late-blind individuals during the monaural task, was negatively correlated with performance. This suggests the possibility that not all cross-modal plasticity is beneficial. Overall, our results not only support previous findings showing that occipital cortex of early-blind individuals is functionally engaged in spatial auditory processing but also shed light on the impact the age of onset of blindness can have on the ensuing cross-modal plasticity.

This research explores the way in which young children (5 years of age) and adults use perceptual and conceptual cues for categorizing objects processed by vision or by audition. Three experiments were carried out using forced-choice categorization tasks that allowed responses based on taxonomic relations (e.g., vehicles) or on schema category relations (e.g., vehicles that can be seen on the road). In Experiment 1 (visual modality), prominent responses based on conceptually close objects (e.g., objects included in a schema category) were observed. These responses were also favored when within-category objects were perceptually similar. In Experiment 2 (auditory modality), schema category responses depended on age and were influenced by both within- and between-category perceptual similarity relations. Experiment 3 examined whether these results could be explained in terms of sensory modality specializations or rather in terms of information processing constraints (sequential vs. simultaneous processing).